A Call to Action

It’s time to support the industry’s political.

By Marvin H. Feldman, CLU, ChFC

“OK,” you ask, “why should I
go to a NAIFA meeting, or even belong to NAIFA?”

I’ll tell you why. NAIFA is the original association representing
the career agents in our industry. In its long history, NAIFA has
expanded beyond the life insurance career agent to include all practitioners
in the insurance-based financial services industry, and it has become
a critical part of our industry’s survival.

Reflect on the attempts by the state and federal
government to attack our products and services—split dollar,
tax on the inside buildup of cash values, tax on death benefits,
potential legislation on COLI, BOLI and deferred compensation—the
list goes on. At every attempt, NAIFA was on the front lines of
industry action to prevent or limit the potential damage to our
clients, careers and industry.

Today’s reality
But today we have a problem. Too few of our members are contributing
too few dollars to IFAPAC, our political action committee, which
lobbies on our behalf. Lobbying is expensive, and politics is expensive.
Just look at how much the political parties are spending during
this year’s presidential campaign. The reality of today’s
world is that NAIFA’s political action committee needs money—serious
amounts of money—to grease the political wheels and protect
our industry.

We must provide insight and guidance to legislators
and their staff on how our products work and how they should work.
Your NAIFA leadership volunteers untold hours of time for our benefit
to fight potential harmful legislation on both the state and national
level. Unfortunately, some of our members have not been involved
in advocacy and do not appreciate this effort. Furthermore, I know
that several hundred thousand non-NAIFA agents have no clue what
NAIFA does for their careers.

OUR PRODUCTS ARE MAGIC
BECAUSE THEY CREATE MONEY WHERE NONE EXISTED BEFORE.

A time for change
But we can change that. Go to your general agents and managing partners
and tell them why they should encourage their agents, financial
advisors, financial consultants and financial planners to join NAIFA
and support IFAPAC. Encourage nonmembers to attend your local NAIFA
meetings and learn what our organization can do for them and what
they can do for the insurance and financial services industry.

Our membership can grow if you become actively
involved. The more you volunteer, the more the organization will
mean to you and the agents you influence. NAIFA can be so much more
and provide so much more as its membership grows.

NAIFA, along with the Association for Advanced
Life Underwriting, is the guardian of our industry and this is one
of those times when size does matter. The more members we have and
the more contributions IFAPAC receives, the more influence we can
exert in Washington, D.C., and on state legislatures, and the better
we can protect our industry and ourselves.

Yes, the companies also lobby, but we represent
the grassroots. We have the pulse of our clients. We know what they
want and what they need to protect their families and businesses.
Our products and services provide security, peace of mind and dignity.
Our products are magic because they create money where none existed
before. That’s what insurance does, and we need to protect
our products and industry.

Marvin H. Feldman, CLU, ChFC, served as the
2002 President of MDRT and has been the chairman of the Top of the
Table. A member of the Mahoning Valley AIFA, his address is The
Feldman Agency, Fremar Building, P.O. Box 30, East Liverpool, OH
43920.